Part 4 – You Are Not Real

Chapter 16 – Needs

The hand remained up despite the nervous tremble which rippled outwards from it. Simona stared at the hand with an inscrutable expression.

Oswald could barely even look at the hand, let alone perform the same gesture. From his seat, Nicolas looked on with the same concern and uncertainty as with everything else he’d seen lately. His lips, like a drowning fish's mouth, moved in quiet pleading that what he was seeing wasn’t real.

Closer in the spiral was Marisa, her hands squeezing her face in a pained effort to hold back nausea. Her shimmering, radiant hair fell widely and naturally across her shoulders. Where before the presence of her body and the density of her hair felt sure and common, since Simona had unblocked her memories these things felt new and strange. Even finding a comfortable way to push back a lock gave her ponderous difficulty. And the sight before her risked all stability and ease she might’ve had left after the tumult of discoveries.

And then there was Marley. She stared at the hand with pleading terror beside a will desiring nothing else than to push it from her existence and back into the nebulous field of nightmares….for the hand was her hand but it was not attached to any limb she could control.

At one point Seth, at another Jessica, briefly Sethica, and choosing Marlise once the worse of the chaos receded, the arm she commanded rose as a reach for the heavens, elbow straight and fingers flexed. Marlise kept her arm up and repeated, with as much certainty as she could retain without crying, “I volunteer.”

Simona dipped her head and nodded before murmuring, “I hoped you would.”

Marisa’s face whirled between the two of them, ready to strike out at Simona with words carved into penetrating spears of anger and sentences with surgical bombs of profanity. But Marlise gave her a look and she withdrew her weaponry (for the moment) as Marlise again seemed clear on divining Simona’s perspective as she noted, “I know…It’s the obvious choice. He manipulated me into a simulacrum of you. I’m his greatest asset. Remove me from his control and his chance of success plummets.”

Simona’s simple answer was, “Correct…”

Despite the arsenal of words and feelings at Marisa’s disposal and a surging feeling within Nicolas to overcome the fear which had gripped him since a hand slipped through his body when he stepped in a doorway, it was Marley who broke through first, with a screamed, face-twisted proclamation of, “BULLSHIT!”

Marley rose from her seat with her hands swinging at her sides as she looked between Simona and Marlise and said the same again, adding, “You’re not allowed to give up! And you! You’ve taken everything from us! Our souls! Our hopes! Our dreams! All so you can fucking scratch out a few more years! Why?! Because you’re afraid of dying? HOW FUCKING DARE YOU…YOU GODDAMN CUNT!”

The fury of her words exploded across the room with more unexpected intensity than anything Marisa could’ve launched and that wasn’t all. She stalked with heavy steps to face Simona. Breathing with a wide-eyed stare, she reached her hands around either side of Simona’s invisible box and touched the air surrounding it. The pushback kept her hands quivering in mime.

Simona kept her same expression but looked ready to say something when Marley intoned, in the most menacing way possible, “Open…”

Throughout the room and to every ear, an audible *click* sounded like the turning of a key. Marley’s hands slid past the invisible boundary and met the soft edges of Simona’s throat. Unlike others might have done, unlike Oswald had done himself, she didn’t squeeze, she didn’t drag Simona to the ground to throttle the life out of her. She could imagine herself doing it, like she’d missed out on doing to her horrifying father (who was likely not real at all). But she didn’t. She left her hands there in a grip.

Quivering in disbelief, Simona couldn’t even find a way to raise her hands. She was completely open to Marley’s will. Marlise stepped closer and yelled, “No! Don’t do this!”

Panting to herself, Marley asked without looking back, “Why? You said there was a Sim version of me who was willing to hurt, willing to kill. Maybe I have that inside. She has no trouble hurting and doing what has to be done. She’d have her hands at my throat if it meant her survival….why shouldn’t I squeeze?” Marley flexed her fingers but didn’t grip.

Marlise answered, “Because you’re better than her. You’re my friend. And I know….I’ve shared your pain. I’ve shared your memories. You’re stronger than this…”

Inside, in a little mental visual, Marley could see the looming figure of her father with his fury and strength. Simona’s father. She tensed her lips and told Simona, “You put your father inside my head. You built my fragmentary life around suffering. I can feel…crying so many times. Over and over. Begging God, the universe, whatever might listen to me why did I deserve this?…why did I deserve to hurt so much? Why was this happening to me when so many other people out there were happy? It’s all I have. My life is nothing but your suffering! WHAT DO YOU FUCKING SAY TO THAT?”

Tensing, Simona responded, “You were never supposed to be conscious of it. It was just like fertilizer in soul soil for me to inhabit.”

Clenching her mouth, Marley reflexively struck Simona hard on the cheek. Simona leaned her head and looked away as a red mark began to show. With a harshly-quiet voice, Marley told her, “We’re not yours to inhabit…”

Letting herself have the faintest trace of a smile, Simona remarked, “Then what do you propose I do instead? Just roll over and die?”

A touch of the light in Marley’s gaze diminished as she answered, “Yes…try dying. I don’t care…”

Simona gave no visible reaction to Marley’s answer, she just continued, “And what about Sim? I’m the only one who has any idea how to beat him. Give me a chance and you won’t have to fear what he might do with absolute power.”

Marlise reached a hand out towards Marley, a hand Marley shared. Her expression echoed a faint feeling inside, a better angel. But what Marley summoned had no sympathy for Simona’s words. Instead, that dark presence inquired, “You’ve said you need a soul…a storage device for yourself in this created world. What happens if you don’t have one?”

Nicolas let go of his trembling fear and stared at Simona with a small measure of Marley’s intensity. Marisa poised to cheer on Marley and steal away Marlise from danger.

At her own pace, Simona answered, “When people first started trying to put their minds into computers, they began as copies. But they were flat copies, paper pictures with rich detail but missing a dimension. There’s no way around it. Flesh is flesh and electronic is electronic. Those crazy, dumb, or desperate enough to give up their bodies were okay at first, then the holes started to show. Imagine the worst amnesia…the worst degenerative brain disease eating memories from one moment to the next until you’re locked into a last fragment of thought like an endless loop from which there is no escape. So yeah, call me morally-reprehensible but I chose the alternative.”

So many bitter words whirled in Marley’s thoughts in response, along with the desire to strike her again. As she focused these thoughts and imagined her actions, her body tensed. But she stopped, took a breath, and turned slowly to Marlise as she realized, “You’re right. I’m better than her and I’m better than….her father. I don’t spread pain around just to soothe my own suffering.”

Nicolas stood and declared, “I don’t really understand most of this. Seems all screwed up. But you take me first and you do what you need.” He stared down Simona, who folded her hands with Marley looming around her. Marlise touched Marley’s shoulder. Only then did she step back. Marisa threw her hat in too, saying, “You’re darn right you’re better than her. Kick her ass!” Marley appreciated that with a quick smile and clung to Marlise.

Simona cleared her throat before saying, “No matter what, Marlise is still the best choice. Now, the two of us can go about this with a peaceful transition and ensure the best for everyone else. Or we can fight needlessly back and forth, wasting our time, our opportunities, and our best chance to set things right.”

Ready to growl and surround Simona again, Marley felt herself held back by Marlise’s touch as she reassured her, “It’ll be okay…”

Gripping her hand, Marley asked Simona while holding onto Marlise, “You dump yourself into her, then what happens? Can it be undone if you find someone else?”

Simona pressed her hands together. “I’ve been testing for a while. As far as I know, at the very least, the host is forever changed. And there’s no way to undo it. If I leave Marlise then I’ll just be wasting her. She wouldn’t be able to survive without me.”

Marley pulled Marlise’s hand to her cheek and said, “That’s the others. Marlise is different. Even Sim knew that. And you don’t know what will happen for sure.”

Dismissively, Simona only said, “Whatever you prefer to believe.”

Struggling not to cry, Marley pulled Marlise close to hug her as she whispered, “You were the one who found me. You saved me from fear. And I missed you so much… Please don’t leave me again…”

They were like a mirror touching itself beyond the threshold of the glass. Marley felt Marlise’s hand stroke their shared hair as she explained, “I need to do this. I’m absolutely terrified to do it but I know I need to. You need to be strong…as I know you are. Take care of Marisa. Comfort my new friend, Nicolas. And know that this isn’t the end…so long as you remember me.” With that, she let go of Marley and moved towards Simona.

She stood there, her arms out straight. She let herself have one more breath before saying, “Do what you intend to do…” Looking Marlise up and down, Simona reached out with both hands and grabbed hold of her face. Shutting her eyes, Marlise didn’t see as Simona pressed their faces together and slipped from one form to the other.

Behind her, like a humanoid waste product, Avery fell to the floor with a flashing moment of shock and surprise which snuffed out like an extinguished light before fear and anger could metastasize in her. Her eyes slipped closed and she settled peacefully to the floor, never to move again.

The new Simona, wearing Marlise’s skin and inhabiting Seth’s soul, turned her fingers around a few times and said, with Marlise’s voice but without her inflection, “It will suffice. Now, shall we begin our return to more hospitable territory?”

Clenching her fists, Marisa asked, “What about her?” She leaned a head towards Avery’s slumped form. Simona gave a quick look behind her and responded, “What of it? Nothing to be done about her. She’ll fade away and the system will purge her soon enough. She served me adequately.”

“I’m going to kill you…”

Marley’s words were spoken so softly that no one noticed them at first. Simona stared with the same eyes Marley possessed and replied, “You’ll be killing your friend too.”

Gently, Marley shook her head as she answered, “You said my friend is gone. Never to be recovered….that’s why I don’t believe you. You’re lying to us. You’re hiding things. But we’ll find out. Then you and Sim will find out what it really means to die.”